'"You're going to see a much greater emphasis
on using sea-based forces to produce an effect," said Admiral Gary
Roughead, who retired as Chief of Naval Operations, the professional
head of the U.S. navy, in 2011.

'"You're seeing it in the Mediterranean, with Syria,
and you're seeing it in the Pacific and the Middle East," said
Roughead, who is now a visiting fellow at Stanford University's Hoover
Institution.India last month
launched its first locally built aircraft carrier and a dozen such ships
are to be completed worldwide in the next decade, including two U.S.
Gerald R. Ford-class giants, two British vessels, a refurbished Russian carrier for India and one or more of the first indigenous carriers to be built by China.

'U.S.-based
consultancy AMI International estimates about $800 billion (495.66
billion pounds) will be spent globally on naval programmes in the next
two decades, a quarter of it in Asia, which now surpasses austerity-hit
Europe as the second-largest naval market after North America.'